


Demons in the Wastes

by VooDooVal



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, M/M, Modern AU, Modern Setting, Multi, Zombies, post apocalyptic, the walls scouts mps and garrison are still a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-26 21:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16689076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VooDooVal/pseuds/VooDooVal
Summary: After being thrust into the hellish Wastes beyond the Walls, tensions rise as hordes of the dead claw at the heels of Talbot and her people. The seemingly inescapable Kenny Ackerman isn’t making survival any easier; his bloody hunting games leaving Talbot grasping at straws trying to keep her rag-tag crew alive.Then, when she discovers that the Titan Virus is evolving, morphing humanity into uglier, hungrier horrors than the creatures that now rule the Earth, Talbot has a choice to make: Let the monstrosities devour the world or join forces with those she loathes and make a final stand for humanity.But how can she save the very people who want her dead?





	1. Chapter 1

Shame, ripped through me. It was a hot, burning thing much like anger but with a sour, churning nausea that spread through my gut. Shame seemed too simple a word for it, honestly. This feeling had weight, a mind of its own and a deep hunger that craved only me. It was ravenous, like the beasts beyond the walls, but they at least had an expiration date. This pit in me seemed endless, eternal and truth be told, I didn’t deserve a reprieve.

“It’s not your fault, Talbot.” Jean’s voice cut through the silence. I winced as his somber voice met my ears, quiet yet deafening. I focused on the body before us, unblinking as he continued. “The game has changed. You couldn’t have stopped this.”

Augie lay on the wooden dining table. His eyes were closed, his face unmarked. If I ignored the absence of the rise and fall of his chest I could pretend he was sleeping. His pale slender neck was bruised and gaping open like a second puckered mouth, angry and wide. If I ignored that too, he could still be sleeping… 

“I doubt his brother will be so understanding.” I said, forcing myself to cross the small distance between me and the table to look down at the boy. Only a boy. Had he been fifteen? Sixteen? I didn’t know. “Rodrick will be here soon and the rest of them, too. How do you expect they’ll react to this?” I carded a hand through Augie’s short curls. “I’d kill me, if I were them.” It was true. I’d promised them protections and clearly, I hadn’t kept it.

Jean sighed and pushed off from his perch against the kitchen door frame. His tall, lean frame coming to a hover beside me. Slender fingers gripped my tanned wrist to pull my hand from the boy and I looked up at him. Gone was the smug smirk I’d come to expect from him. There was no challenging arch to his brow or a twinkle in his brown eyes, only a cold determination that startled me.

“They will listen to you like they always have, Fiona. They will follow y—“

“No!” I cut him off, yanking away from him and taking my fingers through my short copper curls. “They follow you! I don’t know why I let you talk me into being this… this…” I faltered. “I was not meant to be a leader, Jean. I was not meant to be a rock for anyone. This loss marks the end of us, Ackerman’s threats aside!”

There had been twenty of us in the beginning. Twenty good people looking to make ends meet. A house full of companions putting their trust in me, more on Jean’s insistence than by my own merit. Now we were nine and four of us were either too young or too old to ever hope to make any kind of stand. Kenny Ackerman knew that and was hammering away at us anyways, taking more than a pound of flesh whenever he desired.

When we’d started this organization, everything had been easy. We were different than the soft bodied citizens of these walls. We’d survived for months out there in the Wastes without the comforts they had and when we entered the city at Marcos insistence, building a small empire of thugs and thieves had been a piece of cake.

On the edge of the walled cities, the Military Police presence had been scarce, presenting a perfect opportunity. Though the citizens of Maria and outer settlements like Shiganshina we responsible for the majority of the food that was shipped into the wealthier districts, they were poor. We’d started out dealing with the smaller independent farmers, stealing back portions of their products from the government pick ups and selling it back to them for a cheap price. It wasn’t long before we started doing the same for the merchant companies and independent establishments scattered throughout the cities.

Marco, being the sweet hearted boy he was, had always fancied the idea that we were like heroes. He thought that we helped and perhaps we did for a time, giving the people what they needed and taking the income we could manage… but when the hordes of the dead took down the barricade of Shiganshina and tore through Maria, things had changed. Goods were more scarce, which made them pleasantly expensive but the risks of doing our job became too high. We’d quickly discovered that we’re weren’t the only ones trying to game the system. Kenny Ackerman’s boys in Rose were moving in on our clients, those that weren’t ripped to shreds during the chaos, and they were meaner than us. Peddling drugs in addition to wares and killing those that got in their way.

“It’s your lack of craving for the power that made us all choose you, Talbot. I’d be worried if you wanted this.” His hard eyes softened and he came to stand before me again and cupmy cheek. “It’s your worry that makes you do a good job. The best job. You plan things out. You take precautions.”

“Not cautious enough.” I whispered, slanting my eyes back to Augie before Jean changed to a more pressing subject. 

“Have you thought about leaving?” He asked.

Tomorrow, the herd would be thinned. Ever since the Breach, we’d known it would come eventually. Citizens would be drawn at random and thrust out into the Wastes along with any who wished to volunteer. 

The notice flyer, printed on precious paper from the wealthier inner wall of Sina, sat accusingly to the left of the sloppier handwritten threat on the table beside Augie. Ackerman, whose scrawl I would recognize anywhere, had made himself clear; Either me and Jean leave during the Cull and disband our little group, or our bodies would be discovered like the cold flesh of our friend.

“We should go.” He offered. “You and I know how to make it out there. We can take them all with us. It wouldn’t take much convincing for the others. After this…” he gestured to the table, “if they aren’t scared of Kenny now, they will be.”

“Out there you can’t makes deals, Jean” I snapped. “Out there there’s no smooth talking or bribes. People fucking die out there. That’s it! We came here because—“

“Because Marco wanted to!” He shouted, glairing now. He raked his strawberry hair out of his eyes and glared at me. “Marco wanted to be here and I wanted what he wanted.” His voice wavered. “But Marco isn’t here. He’s dead and…” he trailed off, all the anger rushing from him as he exhaled and slumped into a chair.

My heart ached for him and the freckled boy he’d loved. It had been a month since he’d died, since Wall Maria had fallen, and the pain wasn’t getting any easier to bare.

“This place is empty without him.” He said. “And we can’t work, not our usual gig and not a regular farm job. Employment is scarce and the Military Police would scoop us up in a heartbeat. We wouldn’t survive in here even if Kenny wasn’t breathing down our necks.”

It was true and I knew it but I was afraid. Afraid of facing my boys when they got back. Afraid of going back into the Wastes when we’d escaped that hell already… Afraid that if we didn’t brave it again, Kenny would make good on his threats and their wouldn’t be anyone left to attempt to protect.

“They’ll be back soon.” I said, feeling my heart sink as I resigned myself to the path I knew we needed to take. “Let’s get Augie cleaned up and… we’ll start packing.”


	2. Trimming The Herd

“You aren’t coming.” 

“What?” Eren guffawed like the child he was. 

“Kenny doesn’t want your head and you’re too young for this shit anyways.” I explained. “You, Mikasa, Armin and the Old Man stay here. You can have the house.”

The Jaeger boy looked like he wanted to scream, and he might have if it weren’t for the fact that Mikasa, the stormy girl with steal eyes, hadn't put a hand to his chest and glared. 

Armin, angelic and innocent as he always looked, leaned over to Eren and whispered to him softly. Whatever was said made the Jaeger boy’s green eyes dim and he crossed his arms with a reserved huff.

Jean, who was squinting through a new black eye, shifted to lean forward in his seat, elbows to knees. That shiner had been meant for me but like he always does, the idiot had saved me, jumped in front of Rodrick and taken the brunt of the man’s dispar over losing his brother. I hadn’t spared a word to try and convince the man he should leave with us. I knew he would sooner kill me than break bread with me again. 

Surprisingly it had been the only violent outburst from the lot of them. A far cry from the utter rejection and abandonment I had expected upon everyone’s arrival. So here we sat; me, Jean, Oluo, Jaeger and his friends, Armin's grandfather and a blood stained table.

“We’re leaving in the morning.” Jean said. “If you’re coming, Oluo, you should pack and be ready. Thomas has already started.”

As if Jeans words were some kind of herald, a loud thump sounded from above, followed by a few choice expletives from the mentioned blond and a sprinkling of dust from the ceiling. Thomas was a capable man but endearingly clumsy at times. Coordinated or not, a part of me was happy that he’d agreed to our proposal as quickly as he did, bounding upstairs to gather his things without much hesitation. It stirred a bit of hope in me for the prospect of continuing to lead those who would come with me, but not much.

“I don’t see why we can’t just kill that Ackerman bastard and continue on like we used to.” Oluo’s weathered face was set into a scowl. You wouldn’t know it just by looking at his grizzled face, but he was younger than everyone but the kids. He put up a strong front but the guy was really just a crass, soft hearted fool at the core of him.

“We’d never get close enough.” I said solemnly, “and if we could, the fucker would rip us to shreds. Man’s a machine. So we go, or we wait to die and get these kids killed in the process.” I gestured to the younger bunch and Armin cringed.

Oluo growled and raised his voice in protest but was abruptly cut off by the snapping crack of his own teeth as he bit down on his tongue. Normally, this habit of his would have sent an amused tidder through us all but as it was, we sat in grimm silence as he wiped the blood from his lips.

Tomorrow half of us would brave the outside world again. I could only hope it would keep the others safe from Kenny Ackerman’s blade.

-

The next morning I was reaching for the door knob when the sharp wrap against the wood startled me. 

I slanted my eyes towards Jean and the others and they nodded before I pulled the front door open. I was met with two MIlitary Policemen, uniforms pressed to perfection as if the world hadn’t been reduced to a pit of shit.

“We’re on our way out, boys. We volunteered.” I said, nodding to the men behind me and hoisted my pack further up on my shoulder.

“That ain’t why we’re here.” The shorter officer said with the usual MP smugness. His posture was relaxed but his hazel eyes were sharp and alert, taking in everything. 

“We’re here to collect a draftee.” The other one said, bowl cut blowing in the wind as he stared down his slender nose at me.

My gut sank. Someone inside had been drafted? How would they even know to find us here? We were on the books of course but we moved frequently enough that the MPs never could track us down officially.

“Who.” I growled.

“Arlert.” He answered.

A sharp breath was sucked in behind me, probably Armin, and then the adolescent ranting of the Jaeger boy chimed in.

“We don’t know any Arlert and if we did, we wouldn’t give him to you!”

Bowl Cut’s black eyes narrowed and the other MP stiffened, hand moving perilously close to the rifle slung over a shoulder.

“We’ve got four witnesses that put an Armin Arlert as this location.” Bowl Cut said, readying his firearm. “Come along without any trouble or we will use force.”

I opened my mouth to protest but the sound of the Old Man’s voice cut through the air before I had a chance. “I am Armin.”

His weathered hand patted my shoulder and he shuffled past me. I heard a muffled groan of protest come from deeper in the house before someone, presumably Mikasa, hushed the real Armin.

The graying old man came to the bottom of the front steps. “I’m ready.” He said.

“Nice try, old timer,” the shorter MP growled, “but we’re here to collect a kid. About yay high.” He held his arm at the five foot mark. “Produce him or we search the premises.”

The Elder Artlert reached for his inner coat pocket and Bowl Cut trained his gun on him, the other one launching himself to subdue the old guy in an instant.

“No!” I shouted and the rest of the crew flooded out of the house, ready to defend our own.

“Wait, wait!” The old man called. “Wait! I’m unarmed, just reaching for my—“

He was cut off as the MP wrenched his arm back and thrust a hand into the coat, retrieving a wad of documents and a medical card. The brunettes eyes glazed over with greed and Jean gasped beside me.

“The account is full of credits. We’ve been saving up for my medicine. You take that and you take me. Put me down as Armin and it’s yours!”

“Are you trying to bribe a Military Officer?” Bowl Cut growled.

“Can it, Marlowe!” The short one let up on Armin's grandfather and rose to his feet. “How much is in the account?” The MP flipped the thick cardstock over and ran a thumb across the account information scrawled there.

“Enough for a few orders of whatever you want.” Armin’s grandfather answered, stagarring to his feet. “Leave my grandson be and I’ll give you the pin code when we leave the gate.”

And that’s how things went. Everything was hunky-dory as we all gathered at the towering metal wall Maria. Or as pleasant as things could be in a sea of terrified people who were about to face their deaths. 

I stayed close to Oluo and Thomas as I clutched at Jeans wrist. We were in the middle of the crowd, alert and waiting. I could tell instantly who had volunteered to be here and who had been drafted. The volunteers were silent, stoic in their acceptance of their reality while the draftees were loud, raising their fists to the sky as they cursed the lines of MPs that ringed us, keeping us all separate from the civilian homes near the gates.

Some of the more able bodied men had tried to rush the soldiers early on and those who hadn’t been shot were lying unconscious on the travel carts beside the wall or sitting battered and bruised against it, looking utterly defeated. 

I swiveled my gaze to the Old Man when he came to stand beside our lot. “You good?” I asked him, referring to the conversation that had just ended between him and the greedy MP.

He nodded, his mop of grey locks flopping into his eyes. 

“Good. I’ve got a plan.” I continued. “The Garrison is supposed to clear any shamblers from the entryway. We’re staying in the middle. Don’t want to be the helm if there’s a horde nearby and the back is just as dangerous. Once the gates open, people will get desperate to claw back inside and I don’t wanna risk catching an MP bullet.”

“And if we do attract a horde out there? Being in the middle means we get trampled.” Oluo growled, his mop of reddish curls fluttering in the wind. “And can this geezer even run?” He gestured to the older Arlert who stepped forward and puffed out his chest, looking tougher than I’d ever seen him.

“This Geezer has seen more combat than you, son. I might be older and weaker than I used to be but I can move if I have to.” Then he set his silver eyes on me. “But if I falter, you get out of there. I don’t need you youngins’ dyin’ for me.”

I didn't like the idea of abandoning the old man but he didn’t look like he could be swayed so I nodded. “The Scouts will escort us about three miles out. They’ll leave us with food and water rations but we aren’t going for any uh that shit. It’s bad enough that we gotta face the dead. We aren’t gonna get ripped apart by a mob of idiots over jars of water. The houses in Rose will have scraps. We’ll hightail it away from everyone else and find shelter.”

“Sounds about as solid as we can get.” Thomas said.

We were in agreement and we waited for the gates to open. When they did, and the crowd was ushered outside, shots rang out towards the rear like I’d feared. We strode firm, chins tucked as if it would protect us and followed the flow of people. 

Mounds of rotting bodies lay strewn outside the wall and piled six high to either side of the gate. Some of the men and women around us cupped their faces and hid their eyes but not me. I remembered this, I was familiar with this and so was Jean. This was the reality we had lived in before coming to this place and already I felt the stirrings of my old self start to rear her head.

The masses around us had been fellow citizens just yesterday but now they were all threats. They were nobodies to me and the only ones who mattered were my boys and the old man.

I listened intently and we trudged on through the ruins of what had previously been healthy farmland, trying to pick out any sounds of deadly unrest. I spared a second to wonder if the kids were okay without us as a few distant shots were fired, picking off a few spotted shamblers who got too close, no doubt. I hoped that those three kids would survive until the end of this hell and that they’d never cross the path of Kenny Ackerman and wind up like Augie had.

The hum of the few military vehicles that had been afforded to protect us and humanities precious Scout escorts came to a creaking halt. The lot of us slowed to a stop and the soldiers who took us this far raised their weapons towards the snake of helpless people who stretched before them.

A few voices raised ahead of us, unintelligible but obviously upset.

“Something's not right…” Jean whispered.

I felt it too and signaled for them all to start drifting away from the crowd, pulling the blade from my hip holster just in case I needed it.

The commotion of voices got louder in the direction of the larger grouping of vehicles and I caught snippets of what everyone was yelling about as we broke out of the crowd.

The scouts weren’t leaving us with any food rations like they’d promised. They led us all out here where no one in the walls could hear and they were leaving us with absolutely nothing.

“A good thing we didn’t stick around with our hands held out.” Jean growled and we started to make our way towards a grassy hill.

“All those poor people…” Elder Arlert sighed.

“Not our problem.” I began. “Out here It’s us or—“ I didn’t get to finish my thought because suddenly a barrage of gunfire echoed out in the clearing below us. 

I whipped my head around to see that the soldiers had opened fire, not on a horde of the dead but on a mob of living breathing people who had tried to rush one of the vehicles. Other vehicles of Scouts were preparing to leave as many of the non hostile humans scattered. Then the moaning began as shambling bodies from the woods and nearby structures came out to investigate the commotion.

“Keep moving!” I ordered, hoisting my pack higher and trudging farther up the hill and away from the carnage.

The others didn’t need to be told twice and pushed on until I heard something else that made my blood run cold as ice.

In between the gunshots and the growling of the retreating military vehicles, over the terrified screams and the moaning of the dead I heard a man holler. 

Scanning the valley below frantically I spotted a lone vehicle left in the chaos, the last vehicle to leave. “Jean!” I barked.

“What?!” He looked back at me annoyed but when he saw that I hadn’t moved much from where we were and the look on my face, he stopped dead. “What is it?”

“You still got that spyglass?”

He didn’t waste time with talk, just slung his bag off his back, dug out the little metal cylinder and tossed it down to me.

I caught it one handed and extended it, searching the clearing with a closer eye as my friends hurried back to me. The voice I heard shouted again and goosebumps broke out on my arms.

“No…” I gasped. The last vehicle was being surrounded by a running horde of the dead, agitated and enraged by all of the commotion. Shots rang out, orange flashes blinking in the cab as they descended on the front of the vehicle and the unlucky soldier within. The rag top in the back jostled for a moment before a blade pierced it from the inside and sliced, revealing those inside. “No fucking way…”

Kenny Ackerman stumbled from the back of the vehicle, legs scrambling for purchase in the mud below him. Cussing loud enough for me to hear as his right leg gave out, he forced himself back upright and heaved a breath. His long black hair was disheveled and even from far away I knew his dark eyes were wild and alight with fury. 

“Is that—“ Jean gasped beside me.

“How!?” I hissed at the same moment, incredulous.

“The fuck is going on?” This from Oluo.

“Fucking Ackerman, is what’s going on!” Jean answered.

Thomas cursed as I continued to observe Kenny turn his lanky frame to hoist another body out of the back, a blonde woman who’s rope bound hands were quickly released with a swipe of his blade.

Another soldier, who I assumed had been watching over the two because they were clearly not there of their own choosing, stumbled out after them like a drunken fool. A dark liquid was pooling around a slash in the fabric of his uniform.

“Lady and Gentlemen,” Mr. Arlert said, “we will have some very unwanted company in the next few minutes if we don’t get a move on…”

I looked over to the old man and followed his gaze to the dozen rotting corpses coming around the side of a not so distant farm house

“Just a while longer.” I growled, turning back to Kenny and squinting through the spyglass.

The gathering of dead at the head of the vehicle had turned their attention to Ackerman, the blond and the soldier as shamblers in the vicinity headed for them.

“Talbot…” Jean sounded weary.

“Just hold on!” I swatted towards him when he reached for my sleeve.

As the dead rounded towards Kenny, the lone soldier was steadying himself on his feet. Kenny shoved him into the horde and the poor man’s howls of pain echoed out into the valley as Kenny dove halfway back into the vehicle.

The blonde woman clutched at the back of his shirt and hauled him out. Kenny reemerged, a black bowlers hat clutched in his grip and let the woman drag him away from the scene.

“FIONA!” Jean shouted, frantic now.

“FUCK! Okay let’s go!” I collapsed the spyglass again and turned to survey the landscape around us.

The group of dead nearby had spotted us and were stumbling in our direction. We hauled ass to the right, headed for a grouping of farm buildings about fifty meters away.

Screams rang out in the distance as other people encountered more dead and as gruesome as that was, I was glad for it when the shamblers tailing is broke off in other directions and began to run.

Mr. Arlert stumbled beside me and I dove to support him before he could fall, slinging an arm around his middle and pulling him along.

When we made it to the farm I leaned him against a wilting fence and we caught our breath. 

“Thomas, Oluo, clear that barn.” I gestured to the nearest building. “We’ll take the House. You good, Old Man?” I glanced down at The oldest member of our merry band.

“Never better.” He huffed, looking slightly less winded. “Thanks for the help.”

“Don’t mention it. Let’s lock this place down and post up until the commotion dies down. Then we’ll head east in the morning.”

-

After the area was clear of the few stranded dead in the house and we’d all dined on the generous stores of pickled meat we’d found, I sat silently in a worn armchair. It was dark, much darker than the night within the walls where there were lanterns and lamps aglow in the evenings. This was a true, smothering dark and the sliver of moon that could be seen through the curtains in the front room of the home wasn’t much help.

Old Arlert slept, his deep breathing the only thing keeping my ears from ringing in the quiet. That is, until Jean spoke up from somewhere near the front door.

“So? You see what you wanted to see out there?” He asked.

“I saw what I needed to see, but not what I wanted.” I told him.

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Oluo piped up before cursing as someone, probably Thomas, threw something at him.

“I watched because I thought Kenny was going to die. I needed to see, to know for sure.”

“And?” Thomas prompted.

“And he lived.” I said.

And we could have fucking stayed… I thought.


End file.
